What I Own Now

At least once a week this list will be updated. I may well make some trades during the week that don’t make it to this list. (Market action takes precedence over posting, and frankly, having too much public information could let someone “game” my trades, so a certain amount of ambiguity is needed. So you know what I’m trading, but don’t always know if I change from 1000 shares to a “marker position” of 10 shares, for example.)

There are two portfolios here. Mine and my spouses. My portfolio is more of a river boat gambler style. There are some investments in here (like BRKA), but a fair number of “gambles” where I hope for “double or nothing” type action.

Those with the word “toy” after them are not held due to their chart or financial fundaments, but because I like the company for emotional reasons and I bought some tiny bit to get the annual report or to satisfy my desire to “support” the industry. Sometimes I’ve bought as low as one share as a “marker position” so I see when it starts to move. For example, I always hold at least one share of FXY to remind me what the yen is doing since it is so important to “the carry trade”. The same is true of GLD where I sometimes keep one share to spotlight what the dollar is doing in gold terms.

A note on preferred stocks and their symbols. Preferred stocks symbols can be confusing. Different folks will code them differently. For example, the Bigcharts system uses straight letters (as I have here) so F Ford preferred is FPRA or FPRS (they have two). But at Schwab, to buy it, the ticker is different. F/PRA and F/PRS but sometimes displayed as F+PRA … so it can be frustrating to deal with preferreds.

Preferred stock is higher in ‘the capital structure’ than common stock (they get their dividends paid before the common stock, leftovers go the common) but lower than the bond holders (who get paid first, both normal interest and, in bankruptcy, the preferred holders get what’s left after the bonds are made good and before the common.) Preferreds have a fixed claim on the dividends (often about 7% of initial issue price for the shares) after that, any increase in earnings go to the common, so there is a lid on the price rise of a preferred.

The common can ‘run up’ higher and faster. Sometimes this makes the common more of a winner. Sometimes if you missed a dramatic run, the preferred shares are not as frothy and you can still get a piece of the action without overpaying. That’s what I did with the BAC preferreds. BAC was up 25% or so, but BACPRI was up only 10% on 4/9/09 mid day. I could overpay in the feeding frenzy on BAC (and likely have a drop back in a day or two) or I could take a position in the preferred at less of a premium…

Some preferred shares are often very thinly traded, you may be the only buyer or seller for a few minutes or hours. Be careful of this (and use limit orders) if the chart shows low volume in a stock (like, less than 100,000 shares / day).

The “March” date is the date of original publication, not last update. There is no “last update” date flag from WordPress.

I update this list weekly, but not if there were no changes. So, for example, I hold BRKA. I will always hold BRKA. If I buy more, there is no need to update the list, because it is already on the list.

Similarly I do “core plus trade” in EWZ. Rarely I will trade out of it entirely, but for years on end you will see “EWZ” unchanging. I don’t put up “EWZ added 100 shares, oh, no, now I sold 50, wait, added 200 today, sold them at closing, buy if touch filled at the open” . I would spend all day updating this listing. So what you get is “EWZ is what I’m trading” and you can look at the charts and indicators to figure out when to double up or cut in half. IFF I ever sell out 100% of EWZ, then there would be an update.

Why? A couple of reasons.

1) If I am day trading on a 10 day hourly chart and you are trying to follow my trades by reading this list and doing what I do, you will lose money. You will be “out of sync” because you will be using a “daily” or “weekly” time period (when you read) to try and follow an “hourly” signal (on the chart you are not looking at). You must pick your time scale and trade that chart, I may be on a different time scale. That is, an investor might only care about the 10 year weekly or the 1 year daily, while I’m doing the exact opposite on the 10 day hourly or 5 day 5 minute charts. What “ripple” I’m trading may not be the same “ripple” you want to ride.

2) I need to be somewhat protective of my positions, especially in thin stocks. It is possible for folks to “game” my actions if there is too precise a listing of exact buys and sells. This kind of thing does happen. There are major stock advisors where you can watch their announcement and see the market makers start gaming the price. While I’m a ‘small fish’ it is still a good idea to be prepared.

3) I’m making this listing as a disclosure of my holdings for you to see what “bias” I might have. It is not and can not be a “buy list”. There are times I hold things for emotional reasons (i.e. we will always hold 100 shares of Disney) or because I want the prospectus or because I want to be forced to watch the stock (i.e. “toys” and to make up for lack of discipline on my part). There are times I hold things because it keeps my family interested in learning (i.e. some of the women’s retailers). And there are times things may be held for tax reasons. You are not me. You must decide what is right for you, not try to be me. Example: I am fascinated with non-petroleum oil supplies. So I own PSUD. I have no idea if it will ever make money or if it will go bankrupt tomorrow. I own it to watch what they do with algae. Similarly, the THPW is from an interest in thorium as nuclear fuel. They keep me engaged and hold off boredom on the dead days. They will not do that for you.

4) I am not a registered advisor and can not give specific individual advice without signing up for some kind of government license. So I must be sure that my “holdings” listing does not become a “recommended buy list” by default or by my actions in how I manage it. So it is a disclosure of what I hold not any “buy now – sell now” signal and it never can be without breaking the law.

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